Charlie had fallen asleep on his recliner watching sports, but was woken the next morning by a yell upstairs.
"No! Bella, that's the wrong screw!" The voice sounded like the littlest of the Cullens, Alice, could it be?
Charlie blinked awake and looked towards the stairs with confusion.
He heard a loud thump.
Then a crash.
Then Rowan shouted, "The bed attacked me!"
"Coffee before chaos," he mumbled, making his way to the coffee machine in the kitchen before he ventured upstairs.
---
When he finally ventured upstairs, cautiously as if he were approaching a hostage situation, he found Bella's bedroom door open. Inside, he found Rowan, Bella, Alice, and Rosalie all crouched on the floor, overseeing scattered pieces of furniture and screws.
A new bed frame lay partially assembled to the side, screws were everywhere, and cardboard was strewn across the room as if there had been an explosion.
Rowan, at the center, was holding two identical pieces of wood, looking up at the ceiling as if begging the cosmos for answers, "Why do they look the same but feel different?"
Rosalie sighed, "Because this is cheap human furniture."
Charlie cleared his throat, deciding to ignore the human comment, "Morning, girls."
Four heads swiveled toward him in unison.
Rosalie: pristine, unbothered.
Alice: manic, on a mission.
Bella: exhausted.
Rowan: glowing faintly.
He looked away, then looked back. Wait, Rowan was glowing?
" Rowan, you are uh..." he moved his hand around towards her.
"Oh." Rowan looked down at herself and blushed, looking sheepishly back at him, "It's ambience?"
Alice whispered, "I want to bottle it up."
It was too early for whatever this was, Charlie rubbed a hand over his features before sipping his coffee as if it were rescue medicine. He took a breath, "Do I want to know what's going on here?"
"No." All four sounded in harmony.
---
After Charlie left with a slightly confused dazed expression, the four girls resumed assembling the bed frame.
Alice held up the instruction manual, "Step three: attach the mid-beams."
Rosalie offered herself as tribute, but Rowan who had gained confidence went to grab it first only... her excitement called her magic to grab the beam first.
It began to levitate then it glowed.
"Oh no..." Rowan whispered, "Everyone duck!"
Everyone barely obeyed in time as the beam zoomed around the room and lodged itself in the wall by the door.
Charlie ducked his head in and stared at the beam in the wall like it personally offended him, which was very likely.
"I'll pay for it!" Rowan stood up.
Charlie just sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Just patch it up." Before he left the room again.
Rosalie pried the remaining parts away from Rowan's tight grip, "Maybe you should sit the rest of this out."
Rowan sat in Bella's old rocking chair, pulling her legs up so she could rest her chin on them, a loud sigh causing the rocking chair beneath her to begin to rock. She buried her head in her arms with a groan.
Later, when the final bed frame piece refused to line up, Bella sat back and actually swore, causing the girls to look at her with raised eyebrows.
Rowan, usually a calm personality, was starting to get fed up, and the tension in the room didn't help. Her magic flared out as her frustration grew.
The new lamp flickered.
The comforters' ruffles swayed as if from a breeze.
And the screws on the floor rolled into a neat little line.
Alice clapped her hands, "That was adorable!"
Bella looked down at the screws with begrudging awe, "That... actually helped...the screws are all sorted now."
Charlie poked his head in, "Pancakes, anyone?"
---
After breakfast (and Charlie pretending he didn't see how the Cullen girls just cut up their pancakes and moved them around their plates before secretly moving the pieces over to Rowan and Bella's plates), the bedroom finally came together.
Two matching beds with forest-green comforters.
Soft fairy lights that Alice insisted lent to Rowan's ambience.
The glimmering succulent pillow was placed on the rocking chair by the window.
Succulent plants that had bloomed every time Rowan walked by.
Bella stood back with a satisfied smile, "It's perfect."
Rowan looked around, "It looks like a place where we can belong."
Alice sniffled but didn't cry...it would have been a near thing if she could though.
Charlie appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene:
- A glowing, again, Rowan
- Two (not)human girls pretending to be normal
- Bella smiling in a way he hadn't seen since she was a little girl, making mud pies.
- And a room of plants blooming out of season.
He shook his head, "I'm going fishing... or something."
Alice whispered liltingly, "He knows."
Rowan flopped on her new bed, sinking into a mattress that hummed almost lovingly below her. Smiling as she heard Alice bouncing up and down, whisper-shouting, "Best. Weekend. Ever!"